'U ^ fSF Tmir Informal .-,u 
 
 by the 
 
 IKtiitl^l^ Department 
 
 CRUDE OIL: Its Human Cost 
 
 A Challenge to Christian America 
 
 Reprinted from Survey Qraphic for November, 1922 
 
 HE WORKS AN 84 HOUR WEEK: 12 HOURS A DAY AND 7 DAYS A WEEK 
 
ROBERT S. LYND is well 
 known in New York publish- 
 ing circles where he has held 
 several responsible posts, both edi- 
 torial and administrative. His interest 
 in social and industrial problems led 
 him to leave his business connections 
 two years ago for further study at a 
 theological seminary. The facts pre- 
 sented in Done in Oil were gathered in 
 the course of a summer's work under 
 the Home Board of one of the larger 
 denominations. 
 
SURVEY GRAPHIC 
 
 NOVEMBER, 
 1922 
 
 Volume II 
 No. 2 
 
 Done in Oil 
 
 By ROBERT S. LYND 
 
 the smell of the oil — you eat it and drink it and 
 wear it and sleep it. See that land out there? It'll 
 look like a green picnic ground to you if you come 
 back this way when you're done." 
 
 I dropped off the train at Frannie, the nearest 
 railroad station to my destination, some seventy- 
 five miles south of Billings. Frannie is — about 
 what you would expect from its name; a clutter of 
 frame houses and tar-paper shacks, a hardware 
 store, grocery store, lumber yard and a bank which 
 exists to lend money to the struggling, outlying dry- 
 land farmers at lo and 12 per cent. It is known to 
 the outside world chiefly as the eastern terminus of 
 the pipe line from the Basin. 
 
 "They tell me you are the Elk Basin Stage," I 
 said to the man in a sombrero busy teetering a van- 
 load of assorted freight on a staggering little truck. 
 
 "That's where I'm a-startin'," he rejoined. "I'll 
 get there if the mud lets me." A Wyoming road, 
 I was to discover, is more often than not a mere 
 trail through the sage brush, and each traveler has 
 perfect freedom to "blaze his own" to avoid mud 
 and ruts. 
 
 At the end of two hours of heavy going across a 
 bleak waste of sage brush we pitched sharply down 
 over the rimrock and slid with screeching brakes 
 down the long Mormon Hill into the Basin. Why 
 "elk" had ever come to that barren hole in the 
 ground in sufficient numbers to give it that name is 
 a mystery I never succeeded in fathoming — or per- 
 haps there was just one elk that strayed in and never 
 got out alive ! It was literally a "hole in the 
 ground," gouged out of the naked clay and sand- 
 stone, a mile wide, three miles long, and perhaps 
 three hundred feet deep. Huddled in the bottom 
 were the gray mass of the gasoline plant buildings, 
 and a motley assortment of tents, tar-paper shacks 
 and slate-colored company bungalows, while the 
 gaunt skeletons of the oil derricks and the bleak 
 little corrugated iron pump houses cluttered the 
 
 THE ELK BASIN FIELD.— The Elk Basin field is 
 located in the northern part of Park County (Wyoming), 
 along the Montana-Wyoming State line, and is about 12 
 miles west of Frannie. It lies in the Big Horn Basin and 
 occupies the crest of the Silvertop Anticline. The discovery 
 well was completed in November, 191 5, at a depth of about 
 1,100 feet, and had an initial flow estimated at about 400 
 barrels per day. Before the end of 1915 a number of equally 
 good wells were completed in this field and the development 
 was carried across the State line into Carbon County, Mon- 
 tana. The field was so promising that before the end of 
 1915 a pipe line to Frannie was planned. The line was 
 completed in May, 191 6. 
 
 The oil produced in the Elk Basin Field is a very high- 
 grade light crude and is similar to that produced in the 
 Grass Creek Field. The marketed production from the Elk 
 Basin Field was third largest in the state during 1916 and 
 1917, and since 1917 it has ranked fourth. — (Report of the 
 Federal Trade Commission on the Petroleum Industry of 
 Wyoming. January 3, 1921 — p. 18.) 
 
 TATISTICALLY that is about all 
 there is to Elk Basin. At least that 
 is all I had been able to find out 
 about it before that bleak May day 
 when I dropped down over the rim- 
 rock. Varied reports had come to 
 me about conditions in our Western 
 oil fields, and now for three months I was to see for 
 myself. 
 
 "Oil town!" had exclaimed the woman who sat 
 next me as our train clicked its blistering way across 
 the Bad Lands of western Dakota the afternoon 
 before, "Oil town ! don't talk to me about oil 
 towns. Three months of it before you? God help 
 you," she said, collapsing into silence. 
 
 I looked out at the raw hopelessness of the Bad 
 Lands undulating raggedly off into nowhere — just 
 ground, that's about all one could say for it. 
 
 My neighbor revived after a while long enough 
 to add, "I once lived in one of these oil towns. I 
 know oil towns. Ugh! you never get away from 
 
 3 
 
4 
 
 DONE IN OIL 
 
 fringes. No water, no trees, no grass — not a living 
 growing thing in sight save the straggling sage 
 brush. Scattered over the desolate floor of the 
 Basin between four and five hundred people were 
 living the long six-and-one-half and seven-day week 
 of the oil fields. 
 
 The Elk Basin production is controlled wellnigh 
 lock, stock, and barrel by the Standard Oil interests. 
 In this respect it is typical of the situation through- 
 out the entire state of Wyoming, where the Stand- 
 ard Oil companies control "93 to 97 per cent of the 
 total production" of petroleum.* Approximately 
 87.5 per cent of the crude oil production of Elk 
 Basin is the output of the two Standard Oil com- 
 panies' one hundred and four wells, while only the 
 remaining 12.5 per cent is produced by the twenty 
 wells of the small independent company, the Elk 
 Basin Consolidated Petroleum Company. t The 
 two Standard Oil companies are the Ohio Oil Com- 
 pany, a Standard Oil company, and the Midwest 
 Refining Company, 89 per cent of the stock of which 
 last is owned by the Standard Oil Company of 
 Indiana. The Midwest Refining Company (i. e., 
 Standard of Indiana), in addition to its crude oil 
 producing business also maintains a plant In the 
 Basin for the production of gasoline by the com- 
 pression method. 
 
 Before I left Elk Basin last fall I took up with 
 John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the question of the un- 
 satisfactory labor conditions in the Basin. Mr. 
 Rockefeller referred my suggestions to R. W. 
 Stewart, chairman of the Board of Directors of 
 the Standard Oil Company of Indiana. Mr. 
 Stewart, speaking for his company, promptly re- 
 plied to Mr. Rockefeller in these words : 
 
 The Elk Basin field is largely owned and operated by the 
 Elk Basin Consolidated Petroleum Company. The Mid- 
 west Refining Company owns about 4 per cent of the stock 
 in the Elk Basin Consolidated Petroleum Corrjpany. The 
 Standard Oil Company of Indiana owns now about 89 per 
 cent of the stock of the Midwest Refining Company. The 
 Ohio Oil Company may have a small interest in the Elk 
 Basin Consolidated Petroleum Company, but I think it is 
 not substantial. You will thus see that none of the Stand- 
 ard Oil companies has any such interest in the Elk Basin 
 Consolidated Petroleum Company as would warrant their 
 interference in the situation outlined by Mr. Lynd. 
 
 That is, Mr. Stewart asserted that the small in- 
 dependent company noted above as a negligible fac- 
 tor in the Elk Basin field "largely owns and oper- 
 ates" the field. This apparently freed the two 
 Standard companies from any responsibility for con- 
 ditions in the Basin. Mr. Stewart now acknowl- 
 edges, something over a year later and after the 
 
 * See the Report of the Federal Trade Commission on the Petroleum 
 Industry of Wyoming, January 3, 1921, p. 8. It should be borne in mind 
 throughout this report that the Midwest Refining Company passed into 
 Standard Oil control in 1920 and 1921. It is now a subsidiary of the 
 Standard Oil Company of Indiana. 
 
 A later report of the Federal Trade Commission, following complaints 
 from users of oil in Montana (July 13, 1922) states: "The petroleum in- 
 dustry ... of the entire Rocky Mountain region is dominated by Standard 
 Oil interests. This monopoly was perfected in 1920 and 1921 when the 
 Standard Oil Co. (Indiana) obtained control of the Midwest Refining Co. 
 The acquisition of this company gave the Standard interests practically 
 complete control of the producing, transporting (pipe line), refining and 
 marketing branches of the petroleum business of that entire section. . . . 
 The monopoly is made possible by the terms of the Standard Oil dissolu- 
 tion decree." 
 
 t Based upon the output for three typical months, May, October and 
 November. 1921. 
 
 facts have been repeatedly called to his attention, 
 that his statement to Mr. Rockefeller was in error. 
 The seriousness of the matter so far as the five 
 hundred people in Elk Basin are concerned lies in 
 the fact that, coming from the responsible head of 
 the parent company, his report effectively stalled, 
 for the time being, all efforts from the outside to 
 secure better conditions in the Basin. 
 
 The West has a habit of asking no questions — a 
 stranger is accepted pretty much on his own terms, 
 provided they be modest. One fresh from the 
 sophistication of the East is rather taken aback by 
 the friendliness-at-first-sight with which it accepts 
 one, the sort of friendliness that strips off a pair 
 of cotton gloves and gives them to a green man 
 whose hands are blistering under pick and shovel 
 work — you'll know just how friendly I mean if you 
 are ever set to bucking Western hard-pan with pick 
 and shovel with a crew of them! But I get ahead 
 of my story. 
 
 I tackled the boss of the Midwest outfit for a 
 job and he passed me on to the "general office" in 
 front of the company warehouse where my history 
 was taken down and I was signed on as a rousta- 
 bout at four dollars a day — less $1.35 a day de- 
 ducted for board. My job entitled me to free 
 quarters in one of the one-story bunk-houses and to 
 a seat at one of the long oil-cloth tables in the mess 
 shack. There was no ceremony about getting set- 
 tled: one just dumped one's plunder into one of 
 the unoccupied rooms and took possession without 
 the formality of a key. The bunk-house proved an 
 agreeable surprise; at the Ohio camp each man oc- 
 cupied a separate room about seven by nine, walled 
 with varnished tongue-and-groove board and fur- 
 nished with a three-quarter iron bed and mattress, 
 table, chair and closet, while in the Midwest camp 
 two men were more often bunked together in a 
 room about ten by twelve. 
 
 "How are the bugs?" I asked a man lounging 
 outside, who I learned later was a mule-skinner 
 freighting through the Basin. 
 
 "Try 'em and see," was his disgusted reply. 
 "Last time I was through here I killed ten in half 
 an hour and took to the barn with my mules the 
 rest of the night. Me for the hay-loft tonight." 
 But I found that his prediction was largely un- 
 founded in the case of the room I drew; in fact 
 one's luck in the bed-bug line depended consider- 
 ably upc)n the previous occupant of the room — and 
 one's neighbors, for the partitions were thin. Woe 
 to him, however, who neglected the periodic scru- 
 pulous gasolining of bed, walls and floor! 
 
 Married men who bring their families into the 
 Basin occupy separate "houses" — I quote the word 
 advisedly, for it takes a good deal of imagination 
 to call some of the tents and tar-paper shacks built 
 by the companies for their employes houses. The 
 Ohio Oil Company (a Standard Oil company) is 
 the worst offender in this regard, having only two 
 real bungalows and three or four near-bungalows 
 for a population of some twenty-five families, the 
 remaining families living in one, two and three- 
 room tents and shacks without plumbing or running 
 
6 
 
 DONE IN OIL 
 
 water. In at least one case in the Ohio camp, an 
 unusually fine type of American family of four — 
 father, mother, and boys of twelve and seven — 
 lived in a single-room lo x 14 tent. In the Mid- 
 west camp the ratio is about half and half between 
 bungalows and shacks. The eagerness of the peo- 
 ple for more substantial dwellings is attested by the 
 keen competition for the company bungalows 
 whenever one falls vacant. During the long blaz- 
 ing days of the brief summer, the flimsier dwell- 
 ings are bake ovens, while they have to be so over- 
 heated in winter when the thermometer sinks to 
 twenty below as to result not infrequently in dis- 
 astrous fires. Winter in an oil camp a mile up in 
 the air is no joke. 
 
 I was awakened at six o'clock my first morning 
 by "Old John," the bunkhouse "crum boss," com- 
 ing down the line literally blasting the occupant of 
 each room out of bed with the most adequate assort- 
 ment of profanity I have ever heard.- John had 
 come by his vocabulary honestly in the old days fol- 
 lowing Custer's raid when he had owned a saloon 
 in a town which he described with a twinkle in his 
 eye as a "first rate hell-raiser." Ruddy and white 
 of hair at sixty-five he drifted into the oil field, where 
 as "crum boss" his tongue still flays small boys who 
 use up his precious store of water by pilfering 
 shower baths in his absence and routs protesting 
 sleepers from the comfort of their blankets. Yet 
 John is typical of the West, for I found him in the 
 wash-house ten minutes later lending ten dollars to 
 a still sleepy roustabout whom he had only the 
 minute before been threatening with death and dire 
 destruction. Later on, when one of the boys in the 
 Ohio camp was rushed to the hospital twenty miles 
 away with appendicitis and a hundred dollars was 
 needed for an operation, it was "Old John" who put 
 up the needed money. 
 
 I washed in the hard alkali water in the wash- 
 house, breakfasted with the taciturn double row of 
 men feeding methodically in the mess shack, and 
 shortly before seven checked in at the blacksmith 
 shop and took my seat on the floor with the other 
 men. One had only to look at them to mark the 
 difference between them and the workers to whom 
 one is accustomed in our larger cities. There was 
 none of the heavy detachment so characteristic of 
 the foreign born workers of the Eastern city. With 
 one exception, in fact, they were all American born, 
 mostly the substantial type from the Middle West, 
 and their easy raillery bespoke an open air life free 
 from the grosser fatigues of the machine operative. 
 The unmarried men had many of them drifted in 
 from other oil fields, all the way from Pennsylvania 
 to California and Mexico, or from the soft coal 
 centers of the Middle West, while many of the 
 married men had originally given up fenced farms 
 in Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri and ventured west 
 in that most precarious of all gambles, proving up 
 on a dry land quarter-section. 
 
 I checked out as one of a gang of eight rousta- 
 bouts and a "straw boss" assigned to pick and shovel 
 work — and the long grind of those weeks in the 
 Basin M'as begun. I say "grind" not because the 
 
 work itself was unbearably hard. Slogging away 
 with pick and shovel at hard-pan soil that hasn't 
 been molested since the Flood is punishing busi- 
 ness at best, as is also rod-wrenching in the slimy oil 
 ooze about the mouth of a well. But after all, a 
 job's a job, and one worked at pretty much one's 
 own gait, without the constant speeding up to keep 
 pace with a machine that wears out the machine 
 operative. But it was the drab, blistering monotony 
 of seven days a week of It that bludgeoned all the 
 fight out of a fellow. "When you finish a 
 
 ENGINEMAN AND MOVABLE BOILER FOR 
 DRILLING RIG 
 These men all have a healthy respect for their boilers. 
 After Frank Du Fran was blown up with his boiler 
 last winter one of the pumpers running a stationary 
 engine wrote me: "There aren't half a dozen decent 
 boilers in the whole field. I never stay inside my 
 pumphouse with my boiler for fear of its blowing up" 
 
 week's work out here," remarked the man next me 
 as he leaned on his pick one Sunday morning, "you 
 ain't good for nothin' but John D." Jobs like these 
 make one realize how fatuous it is to say that the 
 casual laborer ought to be "interested in his job." 
 During the past year the foreman of one of the 
 Standard companies has been dismissed charged 
 with reputed illicit relations with the wife of a sub- 
 ordinate, while serious charges of a similar nature 
 have been current against another foreman — a condi- 
 tion extremely unwholesome for the entire Basin and 
 making it particularly difficult to hold the men In the 
 bunkhouses in line. But psychology is demonstrat- 
 ing the impertinence of an outsider's blandly apply- 
 ing conventional moral terms like "good" and 
 "evil" to men living and working under such ab- 
 normal surroundings ! \A''orkIng all day under a 
 scourging sun In a raw, shadeless hole in the plains 
 
DONE IN OIL 
 
 7 
 
 is one thing, but when there is nothing to do after 
 the job but sit and look at the naked buttes, and 
 when this keeps up Sundays too, it becomes "some- 
 thing else again." The Rev. Harry Emerson Fos- 
 dick tells the story on himself that he recently 
 finished a Saturday afternoon of golf paired with a 
 stranger who was evidently enough impressed with 
 his game to ask Dr. Fosdick if he could not come 
 out the following day, Sunday, to continue the 
 match. "Sorry," said Fosdick, "I can't, that's my 
 busy day." "Huh," grunted his partner, "you must 
 
 OIL SMEARED FROM HEAD TO FOOT 
 As an oil 'well is drilled it is "cased in" with pipe 
 to prevent cave-ins. Later a string of one-inch tubing 
 is lowered and inside it a string of steel rods, going 
 the full depth of the well~-1500 to 2000 feet. On 
 the bottom rod is a working valve, which sucks in the 
 oil. The "jack" imhich lifts the rods appears in the 
 upper right hand corner. Every week or ten days the 
 entire string of rods has to be removed, to replace 
 the worn washers in the valve; the man here shown, 
 a "rod wrencher," screws each section loose from its 
 predecessor as it emerges 
 
 have a hell of a job." Working for the Standard 
 Oil Company seven days a week, is "a hell of a job" 
 in that respect, too. 
 
 Western folk are used to loneliness and take it 
 philosophically, making the most of their meager 
 resources. But bit by bit, squatting by one of the 
 men for a moment after walking up the line to get 
 a shot of stale water from the water bag, or in the 
 long evenings after work in the shadow of the bunk- 
 house, I sensed the wear and tear of the hardship 
 of the life in the Basin. The drinking water was a 
 constant source of protest among the men and their 
 families in the Midwest camp. The only water in 
 the Basin was alkali water pumped from wells two 
 miles away and condensed for drinking. There was 
 
 no trick at all to the condensing and the water in 
 the Ohio camp was good, but the stuff the Midwest 
 men and their families had to drink was so poorly 
 condensed as to turn a white man's stomach. To 
 make matters worse, various rough-and-ready com- 
 binations, including, it was stated, potatoes and oat- 
 meal, had been dumped into the condensing boiler 
 to stop leaking flues — which helped to heighten the 
 bouquet of the stuff. The mess shack served tea in- 
 stead of water in an effort to cut the taste. Raids 
 on the Ohio cistern under cover of darkness proved 
 fruitless, for the wily "crum boss" kept his water 
 padlocked after dark. So those who owned a Ford 
 went twenty miles cross-country to Warren every 
 few nights to bring home a five-gallon can of fresh 
 water, while the rest of us drank the stinking stuff 
 in the cistern week in and week out under the copper 
 sky of that land where it never rains. 
 
 The only shower bath in operation in the Basin 
 during the past spring and early summer was the 
 one down in the Ohio washhouse — which was not 
 open to Midwest men — for the shower at the Mid- 
 west bunkhouse had been frozen up some time early 
 in the preceding winter and the local foreman 
 had never taken the trouble to open it up again. 
 
 "Good God," growled a man, oil-soaked from 
 head to foot, trying to wash in a bucket of water 
 before supper, "life would be a little bit better 
 around here if we could get a bath once in a while." 
 
 "Huh," said another fellow, laboriously scraping 
 the day's accumulation of parafine off his clothes 
 with his jack-knife, "I'd like to see a state inspector 
 of hygiene come in here." 
 
 It appears that the men were afraid to broach the 
 matter of re-opening the shower to the foreman for 
 fear of being fired, a situation standing out in raw 
 contrast to the industrial representation plan set 
 forth in the booklet issued by the Midwest Company 
 and in operation in the Salt Creek field. 
 
 Least defensible of all the sources of protest in 
 the Basin, however, is the long week that includes 
 Sunday work. 
 
 "While John D. was a-sittin' on a soft cushion 
 in church last Easter morning praisin' God for his 
 goodness to him," remarked one of the men in the 
 bunkhouse with the easy tendency of the workman 
 to personify the corporation for which he works, 
 "I was puUin' a well out here in the worst blizzard 
 of the winter that made my hands freeze to every- 
 thing I touched." 
 
 "Why this seven-day week?" I asked Harry 
 Stanley, a leather faced old-timer originally from the 
 Standard Oil fields at Findlay, Ohio. 
 
 "There ain't no need of it," he replied. "In 
 Findlay even the pumpers come off 'tower' at a 
 quarter before twelve Saturday night and are off 
 unt'l midnight Sunday. The trouble is they've for- 
 gotten what Sunday is out here." 
 
 Just how unnecessary the bulk of the Sunday work 
 is may be seen from the report on Wages and 
 Hours of Labor in the Petroleum Industry just 
 issued by the U. S. Department of Labor.* In the 
 
 * "Wages and Hours of Lahor in the Petroleum Industry — 1920." Being 
 Bulletin No. 297 of the United States Bureau of Labor Staiistics. Issued 
 April, 1922. 
 
8 
 
 DONE IN OIL 
 
 "Fifth A'venue," Elk Basin, with Midwest bunkhouses, mess shack, warehouse and 
 garage in the foreground. This is the "tony" end of the Basin and in sharp contrast 
 to the Ohio camp. A part of the Midwest tar paper shack colony— comprising ap- 
 proximately half their personnel— appears in the back-ground to the left 
 
 tables given below note that whereas the great 
 majority of the workers in the first district (New 
 York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia) work only 
 a six-day week, in the districts further west the over- 
 whelming majority of the workers labor a seven- 
 day week.i In other words, the seven-day week in 
 oil is not dictated by conditions in the industry neces- 
 sitating continuous operation — except in emergen- 
 cies t — but by the unwillingness of the operators to 
 recognize the need of one day's rest in seven. 
 
 Numbers of Oil Workers Working 6 and 7 Day Week — Classified 
 by Occupation and Geographic District* 
 
 •a !» c 
 
 c -5 Ji 
 
 ^ ^ , c , !/> 
 
 P C.S Q ^'Cd n c E r-Q 
 
 N. y., Penn., W. Va...6days 152 189 1406 1007 165 
 
 7 days 55 28 245 161 61 
 
 111., Ind., Ky., Ohio..6days 9 2 55 43 9 
 
 7 days 175 25 758 1192 182 
 
 Kansas, Mont., Okla., 
 
 Utah, Wyo 6 days 16 121 2559 397 15 
 
 7 days 831 175 2495 1755 816 
 
 Ark., La., Tex 6 days i8 41 366 20 
 
 7 days 1012 1772 3244 202 1 409 
 
 Cal 7 days 307 378 785 626 217 
 
 This table means, if lue take the first column, the drillers, that 
 v/hereas 152 of them in the East luork a six-day week and only 
 55 a seven-day i!;eek, in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas only 18 
 ivork a six-day week and 1012 a seven-day week, while in Cali- 
 fornia there are only seven-day workers. Multiply all figures hy 
 four. The Government survey covered only 25% of the workers. 
 
 R. W. Stewart, chairman of the Board of Di- 
 rectors of the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, 
 assured me, since my return, in the course of a con- 
 
 t The Bureau of Labor Statistics classifies all workers laboring six-and- 
 one-half days a week with the seven-day week workers. 
 
 t An "open hole," i. e. well in process of being drilled, frequently can- 
 not be left standing idle because of the lateral pressure which causes 
 cave-ins. 
 
 * Pp. 90-2. I have selected here only the five classes of labor bulking 
 largest numerically. The Government's statistics do not cover the entire 
 industry: "The report is not intended to be a census of the petroleum 
 industry, but every possible effort has been made to apportion the work 
 BO as to obtain a fair representation of the industry in each section of 
 the country where it lias been developed to any considerable extent. Rep- 
 resentative establishments were selected, attention being given to both 
 large and small plants as well as to general location; that is, whether in 
 industrial centers or in isolated sections, because all tliese conditions in- 
 fluence in some degree the wages paid and the hours worked. . . . Schedules 
 were obtained from 62 companies and 16 states engaged in the drilling 
 and operation of oil wells, employing 35,2.S5 males, estimated to be 25 per 
 cent of the total number of such employes in the llnited States." (Sta- 
 tistics are also given for pipe lines and refineries in the Federal B-alletin 
 quoted.) 
 
 ference with him regarding 
 working conditions in Elk 
 Basin, that although the Stand- 
 ard of Indiana owns at least 
 eighty-nine per cent of the 
 stock of the Midwest Refining 
 Company, it is powerless to 
 interfere in such matters as 
 working conditions — a bit of 
 "passing the buck" which I at 
 once challenged. Later he took 
 the position that it is financially 
 undesirable for the Standard 
 of Indiana to interfere in such 
 details as working conditions 
 under its subsidiary company so 
 long as the latter is running 
 smoothly. It is of interest to 
 note in this connection that the 
 Federal Trade Commission's tentative revision of 
 the net earnings on net investment of the Midwest 
 Company for the last three years for which figures 
 are given shows 43.2, 50.6 and 44.4 per cent respec- 
 tively, while the Indiana Company, due to stock divi- 
 dends of 2,900 and 150 per cent, is paying 4,500 per 
 cent on its original investment. 
 
 In the letter to Mr. Rockefeller, Jr., referred to 
 above, Mr. Stewart wrote : 
 
 As you know, both the Standard Oil Company of Indiana 
 and the Midwest Refining Company in their operations in 
 the Wyoming Oil Fields are committed to a six-day week 
 of eight hours each, wherever it is possible to operate on 
 that line. Generally speaking, this principle is observed 
 also by the Midwest Refining Company. In fact I am ad- 
 vised by the head of the Midwest Refining Company that 
 the o?ily place where it is not observed is where the workers 
 themselves have petitioned otherwise. [Italics mine.] 
 
 Mr. Stewart also assured me verbally that the work- 
 ers in the Basin realize that the Elk Basin field will 
 probably be abandoned after a number of years and 
 are therefore anxious to work seven days a week 
 while the work lasts — something like the painter 
 who was hurrying to finish before his paint gave 
 out, I suppose ! During my three months in Elk 
 Basin, I talked to no man who did not prefer a six- 
 day week, nor did I find a solitary man who knew 
 anything about the companies having been petitioned 
 
 Elk Basin boys 
 
DONE IN OIL 
 
 to allow the men to work seven 
 days a week. Not only is 
 Sunday work well-nigh uni- 
 versal, except in the East, but 
 the hours worked per day by 
 certain classes of workers 
 throughout the oil industry 
 match Mr. Gary's notorious 
 "twelve-hour shift in steel." 
 The "Industrial Relations 
 Plan" of the Standard Oil 
 Company of Indiana states in 
 Part D, section V: 
 
 "In order effectively to safeguard 
 the welfare, health and proper 
 comfort of workers, and to promote 
 
 efficiency, the Company will continue to regulate the em- 
 ployment of its labor on the basis of an eight-hour day ex- 
 cept where otherwise agreed upon." 
 
 In Elk Basin all pumpers, drillers and tool dressers 
 of all companies — roughly one man in three — work 
 a twelve-hour day seven days a week. For a few 
 of the pumpers it is a twenty-four hour shift — and 
 in the case of the Ohio workers, who get no holi- 
 days, 365 days in the year! These few men are 
 stationed at the more remote pump-houses and are 
 responsible for keeping the pump going day and 
 night; they "batch" it alone in their drab little cor- 
 rugated iron shacks off in the sage brush; if they de- 
 sire ■for any reason to leave the Basin for a day they 
 must hire a substitute from their own wages. In 
 addition to the seven-day week in the producing 
 end of the field, all engine tenders, oilers and still- 
 men (i. e. all classes of skilled labor) at the Mid- 
 west Gasoline Plant work an eight-hour day seven 
 days a week. All other classes of labor, in both the 
 producing end and gas plant, including office per- 
 sonnel, work a nine-hour day six and one-half days 
 a week. In fact, one of the steadiest men in the 
 Basin was docked recently for not being on the job 
 the night his wife was delivered of a baby down in 
 their rude little shack. There is no overtime pay 
 for the occasional emergency work. The following 
 figures issued this spring by the United States Bu- 
 reau of Labor Statistics tell a grim story regarding 
 the "long shift in oil." 
 
 Drilling crew coming off shift at No. 36 
 
 Clean-out machine and crew 
 
 Average Full-Time Hours Per Week of Oil Well Workers 
 Classified by Occupation and Geographical Districtt 
 
 Q a> P Cja ^pi S c S u HQ 
 
 N. Y., Penn., W. Va. . .6 days 71.0 55.5 49.1 54.3 71.4 
 
 7 days 84.0 83.0 61.7 61.5 84.0 
 
 111., Ind., Ky., Ohio.. 6 days 72.0 57.0 57.3 56.0 72.0 
 
 7 days 84.0 84.0 62.1 62.9 84.0 
 
 Kansas, Mont., Okla., 
 
 Utah, Wyo 6 days 56.3 51.5 51.4 48.6 56.4 
 
 7 days 83.6 80.7 63.4 70.3 83.7 
 
 Ark., La., Tex 6 days 54.0 54.0 53.2 54.0 
 
 7 days 69.3 58.8 61.6 64.4 80.5 
 
 Cal 7 days 56.0 56.0 56.0 56.0 56.0 
 
 Here again, taking the first column, the drillers, this means that 
 the average total liours worked per week by all drillers in the 
 New York, Pennsylvania, If est Virginia fields who work a six- 
 day week is 71, while those working the seven-day week averagt 
 S4 hours. Stop a minute and figure up in terms of your own 44 
 or 48 hour job just what that means.' 
 
 The needlessness of the long shift in oil is shown 
 by the President's Mediation Commission in 1920 
 in the California oil fields which provided that, 
 "Eight hours actual work at the plant or place of 
 employment shall constitute the work day in the oil 
 industry." * 
 
 While the above tables epitomize conditions with 
 regard to the twelve-hour day and the seven-day 
 week in Elk Basin, they point out even more defi- 
 nitely the situation as it exists today throughout the 
 producing end of the entire oil industry, both among 
 the Standard companies and among the independ- 
 ents. This schedule is more extreme than that 
 which prevails generally in the refineries, where the 
 three-shift system is common, and contrasts sharply 
 with the three-shift day and one-day-of-rest-In-seven 
 in which the Rockefeller interests (Colorado Fuel 
 and Iron Company) have been among the pioneers 
 in the steel industry. It Is difficult to fix the original 
 responsibility for the long shift in oil — it grew up 
 with the industry. But certain it is that a large 
 share of the responsibility for its continuance must 
 
 t "Wages and Hours of Labor in the Petroleum Industry," pp. 90-2. 
 
 * See "Memorandum of Terms Governing the Relations of Operators 
 and Workmen in Oil and Gas Producing Companies, Oil and Gas Pipe 
 Line Companies, Companies Operating, Cleaning, Topping, Dehydrating 
 and Gasoline Plants, Contracting Drillers and Refining Companies in the 
 State of California, as Determined by the President's Mediation Com- 
 mission and the Committee of Such Operators." 
 
10 
 
 DONE IN OIL 
 
 "Literally a 'hole in the ground,' gouged out of the naked clay and sand stone. No water, 
 no trees, no grass—not a living, growing thing in sight save the straggling sage brush"~-a general 
 view of Elk Basin. At the left is ivell No. 36 
 
 rest upon the shoulders of 
 the Standard Oil group, 
 for the twenty-three large 
 independent producers, 
 and of course the little 
 fellows, follow in the 
 main Standard practices: 
 "The members of the 
 Standard Oil group," ac- 
 cording to the Federal 
 Trade Commission, "are 
 the dominating factors in 
 the petroleum business of 
 practically ^very section 
 of the United States. In 19 19 the various Stand- 
 ard companies controlled 23^^ per cent of the total 
 crude petroleum production of the entire country, 
 they operated about 68 per cent of the pipe lines, 
 refined almost 44 per cent of the total quantity of 
 crude refined, while Standard marketing companies 
 were the dominating factors in both the domestic 
 and export trade of the entire country. As in Cali- 
 fornia, Standard oude petroleum purchasing and 
 Standard marketing companies usually take the lead 
 in announcing price changes, while others follow." 
 While it is not meant here to imply that the 
 Standard as a minority producer can dictate 
 the labor policy of its competitors, it is plain 
 that the financial power of the Standard companies 
 and the strategic position of their pipe lines and 
 refineries in the various fields tend to discourage any 
 such advance beyond the Standard level in working 
 conditions as would increase the overhead of the 
 outside competitor. That at least certain of the 
 more prominent Standard Oil companies could af- 
 ford to set the pace in a general shortening of hours 
 
 and days per week may be inferred from the earn- 
 ings of the Midwest and Standard of Indiana 
 cited above, and from the Federal Trade Commis- 
 sion's revised schedule of earnings of the Standard 
 of California for the last three years cited, 1917, 
 '18, '19: 24.8, 34.1 and 30.8 per cent respectively.* 
 The vacation policy of the Midwest Company 
 in Elk Basin is to be commended — one week with 
 pay after a year's service and two weeks with pay 
 after two years. Here again, however, as in the 
 case of housing and general care of its employes in 
 sickness, the Ohio Company lags behind the Mid- 
 west, for it grants no vacations at all with pay in 
 the Basin. The Midwest, through its Industrial 
 Relations Department, also provides free company 
 insurance up to two thousand dollars and a com- 
 pulsory sick benefit plan whereby a dollar a month is 
 deducted from each man's pay and he receives two 
 dollars-and-a-half a day after seven days' sickness 
 for a period of twenty weeks. Another noteworthy 
 evidence of Midwest welfare policy is the small 
 but clean two-bed infirmary and the doctor sent into 
 the Basin at the company's expense — in neither of 
 which does the Ohio Company cooperate. All Mid- 
 west employes are treated free by the doctor and. 
 their families are cared for at a nominal scale fixedi 
 by the company. The Midwest Company also keeps; 
 a traveling library of fifty books in the Basin. \ 
 Hard as the long day and the seven day week arei 
 on the men, however, I sympathized even mOre with] 
 the women and children of the Basin. Elk Basin is| 
 not only over a dozen miles from the railroad, but 
 twenty miles over rutted trails to even the nearest 
 "movie" show. And while the men have the rough 
 
 * See editorial pag:es for recent earnings of varions Standnrtl companies. 
 
DONE IN OIL 
 
 II 
 
 pool hall where they while away the evenings gam- 
 bling mildly, for the women the days crawl endlessly 
 by. In winter they are snowed in for weeks at a 
 time. "Last winter," one mother of a family of five 
 told me, "the snow was so deep that I didn't get out 
 of our front door for six weeks." While during the 
 brief summers they keep indoors while the sun 
 blazes down as it only can in a treeless country 
 where cloudy days are almost unknown. Someone 
 has said that "it is always three o'clock in the after- 
 noon in hell" — and it seemed always three o'clock 
 in the afternoon in those sun-burned little shacks of 
 the Basin. I recall a visit I paid to a patient girl- 
 mother who had just been delivered of a still-born 
 baby; I had dropped by one noon to see if there 
 was anything an outsider could do. She lay in 
 the bare little living-room-bed-room-everything-but- 
 kitchen, smiling pluckily while the flies blackened 
 the sheet and a rod line screeching back and forth 
 over the parched ground outside the door added to 
 the nausea of the heat. Several doors away in an- 
 other two-room tar-paper shack all four children 
 were down with whooping cough and the gaunt 
 mother with her hair stringing about her face told 
 me with a tired smile that she guessed there wasn't 
 much else that could happen to them now. I used 
 to wonder when I was new in the Basin at the ex- 
 travagance of the mother of a family of six living 
 on a salary of less than five dollars a day who paid 
 two dollars for a watermelon, or at the expensive 
 looking victrolas in one- and two-room shacks, or 
 how some of the families could afford even a bat- 
 tered Ford (about one family in every three has 
 some kind of cheap automobile). But these things 
 are literally more necessary than bread and pota- 
 toes and shoes — they afforded the same imperative 
 relief that the boy next me in the bunk-house, a fine, 
 clean fellow of nineteen grinding along twelve hours 
 on and twelve off seven days a week, got the night 
 he went over to Red Lodge with a 
 crowd and got on his first big drunk. 
 
 There were occasional dances in the 
 pool hall but these were sometimes 
 uneasy times for certain of the wivfes 
 for the dances were apt to bring boot- 
 leggers into the Basin. In the course 
 of the summer some of us launched a 
 series of community sings which were 
 eagerly attended — people sometimes 
 actually standing outside the crowded 
 little schoolhouse and singing in 
 through the windows. The most ob- 
 vious social need of the Basin had 
 long been recognized to be, however, 
 a community house where the women 
 could sit and sew with each other dur- 
 ing the day and there could be in- 
 formal dancing and games at night; a 
 rough basket ball floor would go far 
 toward solving the recreation problem 
 of the men in winter. The companies 
 had been repeatedly petitioned to 
 build some simple community house 
 such as the Midwest Company has 
 
 erected in other fields. At length we subscribed six 
 hundred dollars among ourselves toward the cost of 
 the building, but even this concrete suggestion met 
 with the profound silence of Don Marquis' "rose 
 petal dropped into the Grand Canyon." 
 
 During the past summer, due to the energetic 
 work of M. Huyett Sangree, a minister temporarily 
 stationed at Elk Basin by the Board of Home Mis- 
 sions of the Presbyterian Church, the matter was 
 again pushed with the companies. The Midwest 
 Company (Standard of Indiana) responded with an 
 offer of five hundred dollars, contingent upon the 
 Ohio Company (Standard) contributing a similar 
 amount. The scheme was again promptly knocked 
 in the head, however, through the Ohio Oil Com- 
 pany's refusal to cooperate. The reason advanced 
 by Mr. McFadyen of the Ohio Company in his letter 
 of refusal — because "the price of oil has gone off" 
 temporarily — would be highly amusing, in view of 
 the fact that the Ohio Oil Company's stock sells at 
 over $300 and it has just declared a 300 per cent 
 stock dividend, were his refusal not the cause of such 
 bitter disappointment to the people of the Basin. 
 
 Many of the families of the Basin are substantial 
 American folk whose children might go to college 
 in a more favored community. And it was to the 
 problem of their children that these earnest, patient 
 people of the West recurred most often in the eve- 
 nings as we sat about the doorstep while the dying 
 sun splashed the western sky with color. For the 
 girls, unless they left home after finishing the eight 
 grades of schooling available in the Basin, there was 
 nothing ahead except work as a "hasher" for the 
 rude crew in the mess shack or marriage to one of 
 the unmarried men in the bunk-house and — the oil 
 fields throughout all their lives too. For the bovs 
 the future was less problematical: they hung around 
 the pool hall learning to grow up fast and eventually 
 signed on as roustabouts. During the summer we 
 
 A familiar figure in the Basin, who 
 has outmaneuvred the oil com- 
 panics in their attempts to gobble up 
 the oil rights on her near-by home- 
 stead. She slept in the sage-brush 
 in the early days until her house 
 was built, and for five years has 
 hung on, burning sage-brush to keep 
 warm during the long winters when 
 it is twenty below, and carrying 
 drinking water from the Basin two 
 miles and a half away, her teihole 
 life narrowed to a single consuming 
 passion— to beat the oil companies. 
 She is hanging on, strong in the 
 faith that there is a "river of oil" 
 under her homestead— and there is 
 a good chance that she will strike 
 oil with her "wild cat" drilling com- 
 pany, no'w at iDork. She has posted 
 the sign shown abo've, threatening 
 dire destruction to any man or beast 
 of the oil companies that comes 
 upon her property, and stands by 
 •with her six-shooter at her belt 
 
12 
 
 DONE IN OIL 
 
 organized scout troops for both boys and girls, and 
 after the lay-off came, I took the boys off for a 
 couple of hilarious camping trips. "It's been the 
 first summer our streets haven't been full of howl- 
 ing young hoodlums," said one woman. But these 
 things of course did not get at the real problem of 
 the children in a place like the Basin. 
 
 Perhaps the healthiest thing about life in Elk 
 Basin is the passion of young and old for trout fish- 
 ing. Forty miles away over straggling trails are 
 two trout streams — and trees and grass! In 
 winter the people live for the coming of summer 
 and during the brief summer they hang on through 
 the heat by the thought of the next fishing trip to 
 Pryor or the Canyon. And those of them who do 
 not work the twelve hour shift and are lucky enough 
 to own some form of conveyance make the best of 
 their brief half-day on Sunday. One man who works 
 an eight hour day seven days a week at the Mid- 
 west Gasoline Plant used frequently to come off his 
 shift at midnight, hop into his dilapidated Ford, 
 do the forty miles through the night up the ghostly 
 Pryor canyon, squat on the bank till dawn, and then 
 fish until it was time to come scorching back to check 
 in on his four o'clock shift without sleep. 
 
 Day followed day in the Basin in glaring proces- 
 sion : up at six, breakfast, on the job at seven, dinner 
 at twelve-fifteen, on the job again at one, supper at 
 five-fifteen, sit about a while, sleep, up at six, break- 
 fast, on the job, — and so on and on and on, hemmed 
 in forever by that grey circle of rimrock. Occa- 
 sionally the monotony would be varied, as when 
 Frank Du Fran was blown up by a defective boiler, 
 or one of the tar-paper houses went up in flames 
 while the neighbors stood helplessly by without 
 water or fire-fighting apparatus, or there would be 
 a fight as when "Big Joe" and his helper settled 
 the question as to which was to be boss down at the 
 test rig, or there would be an occasional dance or 
 birthday party, or a meeting of the "Ladies Aid" 
 (there is no church building and no regular services 
 in the Basin), or a collection would be taken up for 
 somebody sick or stranded (an appeal, by the way, 
 to which people never failed to respond magnifi- 
 cently- — a subscription of $300 being by no means 
 unknown). These things caused a slight commo- 
 tion, which immediately flattened out, however, into 
 the dead calm of "all work and no play." 
 
 "Why don't you organize?" I asked a man one 
 evening as we sat on a bench against the bunk-house. 
 
 " 'Organize' hell — try it and see," was his laconic 
 reply. 
 
 It appeared that two men had tried it two years 
 ago and had lasted only about two weeks on their 
 jobs. A recent notice of a wage cut posted in the 
 blacksmith shop had been accompanied with the 
 pregnant suggestion that anybody not satisfied could 
 get out. I gradually discovered that the men were 
 almost universally in favor of organization but in 
 mortal terror of the companies' finding them out. 
 There was a clause in the California agreement re- 
 ferred to above providing that "membership in any 
 labor union affiliated with the American Federation 
 of Labor shall not be a bar to employment, nor 
 
 shall any man be discharged or discriminated against 
 for membership in such labor union," but needless 
 to say such consideration was out of the question in 
 the Basin. The very problem of finding ground on 
 which to hold a meeting in a town one hundred per 
 cent owned by the companies is in itself almost pro- 
 hibitive. Subsequently organizers have again en- 
 tered the Basin, only to give it up as a bad job. 
 
 "Shorty" stopped one day as we were digging 
 and, leaning on his pick, remarked, "Well, I guess 
 some of us'll be goin' down the road talkin' to our- 
 selves pretty soon." And he was right: the tempo- 
 rary cut in production ordered in a distant office 
 where Elk Basin was only a spot on the map reached 
 into the Basin one morning and the lay-off began. 
 It sent "Shorty" down the road "talkin' to hisself," 
 a boy of twenty-three shunted on to the next job in 
 the haphazard career of the casual laborer; Charlie 
 went north into the wheatfields, leaving his wife be- 
 hind in the rusty little shack; Hugh got a railroad 
 job, leaving his wife and two boys in their one-room 
 tent. One by one they drifted up over the rimrock 
 and the uneventful life of the Basin assumed a 
 semblance of excitement as we speculated as to who 
 would be plucked next. I find an entry in my note- 
 book: "Seven more men laid off today. Things 
 pretty blue around the bunkhouse." 
 
 WHEN I finally came out of the Basin there was 
 no question in my mind as to what should be 
 done. These things are urgent: 
 
 Fiist: A six day week, with Sunday work only in 
 real emergencies. 
 
 Second: Abolition of the long twelve hour day 
 and the substitution of three shifts instead of two 
 as in the California agreement cited above. 
 
 Third: Provision of a simple community house 
 for recreational purposes. 
 
 In addition to these, there is an unquestioned 
 need for: 
 
 Fourth: Recognition, as in the California agree- 
 ment, of the rrght to organize. 
 
 Fifth: Better housing for from fifty to eighty 
 per cent of the families. 
 
 Sixth: Extra pay for overtime work. 
 
 All of the above six needed changes are bound 
 to come. 
 
 But owing to its isolated location, conditions in 
 the Basin will always tend to lag behind those in 
 more favorably situated fields. Its very isolation 
 however, with the inevitably increased hardship of 
 its living and working conditions, ought to enlist in 
 its behalf a first call in the allocation of company 
 community halls and other welfare facilities. For 
 improvement in hours of labor and the archaic seven- 
 day week it will doubtless have to wait until public 
 opinion forces a betterment of conditions throughout 
 the entire oil industry. 
 
 Meanwhile the merry-go-round of the seven-day 
 shift goes on : 
 
 "Brutal, ain't it," remarked a workman to me the 
 other day, "I'd as soon be dead." 
 
A Promise of Better Days 
 
 By JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. 
 
 1 
 
 GREATLY appreciate the editorial 
 courtesy which has permitted me to 
 read and to comment upon Mr. 
 Lynd's article in advance of publica- 
 tion. The conditions described 
 have caused me deep concern. The 
 first intimation months ago that 
 such a situation existed in the Elk Basin field led me 
 to institute prompt inquiry, vs^ith the hope that any 
 just grounds for criticism might be removed forth- 
 with. That these efforts, long since under way and 
 still in progress, have not been more quickly effec- 
 tive has been and is a disappointment. 
 
 While I recognize the tolerance and restraint of 
 the article, I should regret if the omission of safe- 
 guarding references might lead readers to infer that 
 the Elk Basin situation is typical of the oil industry 
 as a whole or of the policies of the Standard Oil 
 companies in particular, for quite the contrary is the 
 fact. It is hardly necessary for me to call attention to 
 what has long been very generally conceded among 
 employers and employes alike, namely, that the Stan- 
 dard Oil companies have always paid full wages and 
 treated their men with justice, friendliness and con- 
 sideration. I think it will be recognized that the Elk 
 Basin is a peculiarly barren, isolated and difficult 
 location in its physical setting. According to in- 
 formation from responsible sources, I have reason 
 to believe that the unhappy circumstances apparently 
 surrounding this single field are in marked contrast 
 with those in other branches of the industry, and 
 especially those in less difficult producing areas. 
 
 Haying, however, thus pointed out that these 
 conditions do not pertain widely, I certainly have no 
 wish to defend or extenuate this particular situation 
 in itself. On the contrary, I am glad of this oppor- 
 tunity to set forth with all frankness and emphasis 
 my own position in regard to matters of this kind. 
 
 The circumstances described by Mr. Lynd have 
 to do in part with hours of labor and in part with 
 living conditions. On the basis of the facts in the 
 matter, I trust there will be no misunderstanding 
 either on the part of the responsible executives in the 
 companies to which I may be related or on the part 
 of the public at large as to my position on both of 
 these questions. 
 
 I believe that generally speaking the twelve-hour 
 day and the seven-day week should no longer be 
 tolerated in industry, either from the viewpoint of 
 public policy or of industrial efficiency; I believe that 
 both have been proven to be unnecessary, unecon- 
 omic and unjustifiable. As a matter of general pol- 
 icy, subject only to the demands of occasional emer- 
 gency, modern industry is justified in accepting the 
 eight-hour day and the six-day week, as a labor 
 
 Copyright Underwood 
 
 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR. 
 
 "The twelve-hour day and the semen-day 'week 
 should no longer be tolerated. . . . I believe that 
 both have been proven to be unnecessary, uneconomic 
 and unjustifiable 
 
 13 
 
14 
 
 A PROMISE OF BETTER DAYS 
 
 standard toward which all the parties interested 
 should steadily press. Even in those industries 
 where the continuous process is an inevitable feature, 
 the routine should be so adjusted that the employes 
 can have at least one day's rest in seven and can ob- 
 tain that share of leisure for self-development which 
 accompanies the work-day of approximately eight 
 hours. While the adoption of these standards may 
 and doubtless will at first entail increased costs of 
 production, I am confident that in the long run great- 
 er efficiency and economy will result, and that from 
 the outset public opinion will support any industry 
 which installs them. The same sentiment will 
 eventually bring into line the less scrupulous and less 
 enlightened elements in every competitive industry. 
 
 With regard to living conditions there can be even 
 less room for argument or division of opinion among 
 men of clear vision and humane mind. Even in 
 isolated locations like mining camps, it is not only 
 possible but necessary that reasonable provision 
 should be made for the health, comfort and content- 
 ment of those who may labor there in behalf of the 
 entire community. The oil fields, to be sure, suffer 
 difficulties even greater than the coal mines, being 
 not only temporary but speculative in their output. 
 Even with this allowance the environment is certainly 
 subject to amelioration and to such provision for 
 home and recreational life as will promote the well 
 being of all those concerned. 
 
 I have never believed that these things should 
 be provided for working men and women either as a 
 result of chance generosity or deliberate paternalism. 
 Quite aside from the fact that, in my judgment, 
 they represent the soundest economic policy, they 
 are due the employe as a matter of common justice, 
 required by the basic fact that man is a human being 
 firpt and a member of industry afterward. As a 
 private citizen and individual stockholder, I have 
 never hesitated to state my position on these points 
 with all the clearness at my command. I have not 
 wittingly lost an opportunity — so far as a minority 
 stockholder may do so- — to reinforce my position on 
 the general policy with action that would be most 
 
 concrete and adequate. I have done so, moreover, 
 where changes urged by me involved competitive 
 burdens and consequent anxiety to responsible man- 
 agers, but I have never seen reason to regret any 
 advance thus obtained or to modify the grounds on 
 which they were urged. On the contrary, I would 
 reaffirm the belief that sooner or later all such added 
 burden is balanced by the increased efficiency and 
 contentment of the laboring force and that less gen- 
 erous directors of industry in due time will inevitably 
 follow the same course, if not through choice then 
 under compulsion of public opinion. 
 
 In pursuance of this policy, some of the problems 
 which have to be faced and many of the evils which 
 should be removed are deeply rooted, sometimes 
 within the processes of an entire industry. To my 
 mind, however, where the right course is clear, dif- 
 ficulties in the way do not excuse inaction, -but rather 
 should inspire a more vigorous determination. So 
 far as concerns the discharge of my own responsi- 
 bility as a stockholder for better industrial condi- 
 tions and relations, I have made special provision 
 for assistance in just such tasks as these, which are 
 sometimes onerous, often perplexing, but always 
 close to my heart. To that end I welcome every aid 
 from whatever source, as men of like mind and 
 common purpose try to raise industry to a level of 
 public service and thereby to make the world a bet- 
 ter place for all men to live in. 
 
 [Mr. Rockefeller's letter reflects the straightforward attitude 
 which he has repeatedly taken in matters of this sort during recent 
 years. He points out, as I myself do in the course of my article, 
 that certain conditions, such as the drinking water problem, are 
 due to the peculiar isolation of the Elk Basin field. I must protest, 
 however, at his including such conditions as the seven-day week 
 and the twelve-hour day among "the unhappy circumstances ap- 
 parently surrounding this single field" which "are in marked con- 
 trast with those in other branches of the industry, and especially 
 those in less difficult producing areas." As I have tried to make 
 explicit in more than one place in the article, Elk Basin is in no 
 sense unique either in the matter of hours worked per day or days 
 worked per week — in fact, quite the contrary, it is entirely typical 
 of the oil fields generally, with the exceptions noted in the article. 
 The whole drab story is set forth in detail in Bulletin No. 297 of 
 the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wages and Hours 
 of Labor in the Petroleum Industry, published in April, 1920, and 
 to be had for the asking from the Government Printing Office in 
 Washington. — R. S. L.] See editorial on next page. 
 
 Detail of a section of the Elk Basin field— typical in its barrenness. 
 
EDITORIAL: SURVEY GRAPHIC, NOVEMBER, 1922 
 
 15 
 
 OIL has meant stupendous fortunes for some ; it 
 has meant light and heat and motive power for 
 the countless thousands. But when it comes to 
 the producing regions themselves, Mr. Lynd 
 is on altogether sound footing when he warns Mr. 
 Rockefeller and the readers of Mr. Rockefeller's state- 
 ment against any assumption that the working schedule 
 which Mr. Rockefeller calls intolerable, unnecessary, un- 
 economic and unjustifiable, is in any sense a condition con- 
 fined to the small tract in Wyoming. With the excep- 
 tions noted, it is common practice throughout the producing 
 fields of the west. They have extended the gruelling de- 
 mands of the long shift at the expense of health and fair 
 living and household integrity wherever in the west the hid- 
 den veins of one of the great natural resources of the new 
 world and the new industrial age have been tapped. Nor 
 have the refineries of the east, with their marked advances 
 in labor administration in recent years wholly rid themselves 
 of its bane. 
 
 MOREOVER, the general economic setting of Elk 
 Basin and the other producing oil fields should be kept 
 clearly in mind. That setting is not barren, isolated or 
 difficult. If the communities concerned were wringing 
 a scant existence from a southern mountain side or a worn= 
 out New England farm, we should have one picture before 
 us. But, quite the contrary, they are communities whose 
 daily toil is an essential part of the richest production oper= 
 ations in America. 
 
 As this issue goes to press. Wall Street is witnessing 
 another scramble for Standard Oil stocks, with various 
 securities of the Standard Oil group touching new high 
 levels. Within a fortnight six different companies have 
 cut ponderous "melons" — the Standard of New Jersey de- 
 claring a stock dividend of 400 per cent, the Vacuum Oil 
 Company and Ohio Oil Company, both Standard and both 
 300 per cent stock dividends, Standard of New York a 200 
 per cent stock dividend, and the Standard of California a 
 100 per cent stock dividend, which, with the earlier StajWard 
 Oil Company of Kentucky stock dividend of 33 i/Bpei' 
 cent — makes seven such transactions within a year. " 
 
 This makes 1922 the best "melon" year for the Stand- 
 ard Oil group since 1913, when nine such stock distri- 
 butions were made; 191 6, 191 7 and 1920 each witnessed 
 three Standard Oil stock dividends, while there were two 
 each in 1915 and 1912 and one each in 1914 and 1921. 
 
 It should not be overlooked, of course, that in addition 
 to the above stock dividends [to quote from the New York 
 Times] : 
 
 . . . Standard Oil units . . . since the old New Jersey com- 
 pany was split up in 191 1 as a result of a Supreme Court deci- 
 sion . . . have distributed more than $1,000,000,000 in the form 
 of cash dividends. 
 
 THESE facts are not set down as a text for discussing 
 profits or the question of public policy involved in the 
 Federal Supreme Court decision which freed stock dividends 
 from taxation as income. They have another significance 
 which bears directly on the facts of life and labor revealed 
 by Mr. Lynd. It is pertinent in the light of his experience 
 to note the presence of both the Standard of Indiana and 
 the Ohio Oil Company in the above listings. The first of 
 these, the Standard of Indiana, holds the record for hav- 
 ing declared the great-grandfather of all stock dividends, 
 2900 per cent in 19^2, followed in 1920 by another modest 
 150 per cent dividend. The recent activity of Ohio Oil 
 in the market — its stock has reached 350 — throws into stark 
 relief the letter from Mr. McFadyen of the Ohio Oil Com- 
 pany cited by Mr. Lynd in which he withdrew on August 16 
 
 of the current year his offer to contribute towards a com- 
 munity house in Elk Basin because "the price of oil has gone 
 off so that it is necessary for us to curtail expenses wherever 
 we can." The Ohio Oil Company had been asked to con- 
 tribute $500 ! The increase in the capital stock of the Ohio 
 Oil Company, announced as this issue goes to press, is to be 
 from $15,000,000 to $60,000,000. "The present disburse- 
 ment," says the New York Times, "will mean a breaking 
 up of part of one of the largest surpluses among the Standard 
 Oil companies." Mr. Lynd has been repeatedly assured in 
 the conferences with various representatives of the oil com- 
 panies concerned which preceded the writing and publication 
 of his article that the entire Standard Oil block of thirty-three 
 companies control only approximately a quarter of the crude 
 production, half of the refining and two-thirds of the pipe 
 lines in a highly competitive industry and therefore were in 
 no position to take the initiative in such matters as abol- 
 ishing the twelve-hour day. In view of the well known fact 
 that the independent companies follow in the main the re- 
 tail price standards set up by the Standard Oil companies in 
 the various sections of the country, and in the light of the 
 extravagant profits which the latter are deriving, and even 
 admitting that they cannot directly influence working con- 
 ditions in competing fields, it would certainly appear that the 
 powerful Standard Oil companies must stand naked at the 
 bar of public opinion in the matter of the twelve-hour day 
 and the seven-day week until they set their own house in 
 order. 
 
 HERE it is that the statement of John D. Rockefeller, 
 Jr., has unprecedented significance. With the rapid 
 rise of corporate industry in the last fifty years, we have 
 only begun to develop an ethics of industrial responsibility 
 capable of meeting the stress of nation-wide production. 
 Responsibility is scattered from stockholders and corpora- 
 tion headquarters through various stages of management 
 and superintendence. Even the Sherman Act itself may 
 be cited as a difficulty in placing responsibility completely 
 enough on the ultimate owners of industry. In spite of 
 his strategic position, his aroused sense of the stewardship 
 of great wealth, his personal counsel on industrial and social 
 as well as business matters, the case of Mr. Rockefeller, Jr., 
 illustrates the common difficulty of finding a substitute for 
 human contact. It took a year to get the facts of Elk Basin 
 convincingly before him, up through the chambered nautilus ^ 
 of absentee capitalism. 
 
 In this situation the pressure on the men making operat- 
 ing decisions all along the line is for profits rather than for 
 human values. In that we have, if one were needed, the 
 justification of just such an arresting call upon public in- 
 terest as Mr. Lynd makes from the field — a call fortified by 
 his inescapable body of closely documented facts. The 
 public cannot escape its share of responsibility, once the 
 facts are known, any more than Col. Stewart and other oil 
 company officials as u-ell as all holders of Standard Oil securi- 
 ties can escape theirs. Mr. Rockefeller, within the bounds of 
 one man's sphere of responsibility, attempts no such evasion, 
 as his vigorous and challenging expression of leadership in 
 the elimination of the twelve-hour day and the seven-day 
 week from the oil industry indicates. He may not turn the 
 other cheek to criticism, but he does not dodge where it 
 lands. He comes back not at his critic but at the abuses 
 criticized. His left hand may have been lame in neglecting 
 hoary and untenable evils; but with his right he gives them 
 a blow straight from the shoulder. Concerted action, in 
 line with his challenging statement, on the part of other 
 holders of oil stocks, large and small, could lift the oil fields 
 from the category that has made the continuance of the long 
 shift in steel an industrial disgrace. 
 
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 I ' I 'HE SURVEY is a magazine of social exploration, handling American life | 
 
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